


let's start a riot

by dirty_diana



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Gen, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-07-25 15:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16200569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirty_diana/pseuds/dirty_diana
Summary: Nate and Zari form a band, survive a kidnapping, and find a stowaway on the Waverider. Not necessarily in that order.





	let's start a riot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ideare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideare/gifts).



> ZARI: We're friends?  
> NATE: Yeah, of course. So lay it on me. What's happening?
> 
> \--3.11, Here I Go Again

"I've been thinking," Nate said.

Zari exhaled a cloud of smoke. It swirled like a dancer above her head, where she was lying flat on her back on the floor in Nate's room. She felt calmer than she had in weeks. She thought about floating. "Sara's not going to let you keep a dragon," she answered.

"Not about the dragon!" Nate huffed, the way he did when his brain was racing a thousand miles a minute and his listeners were frustrating him by not keeping up. "Though it was just a tiny one. Ray could clean up after it. He likes that kind of thing."

"You were thinking?" Zari prompted gently, when Nate had lapsed into distracted silence. 

"Oh, yeah. You learned to play the violin in the Groundhog Day loop, right? So we should start a band. I was thinking alternative with a touch of bluegrass. Maybe some rockabilly."

"Not a lot of bluegrass fusion in 2042," Zari said doubtfully.

"Then we'll be preventing the worst possible timeline by keeping it alive, right?" Nate rolled over, putting his face too close to hers. His pupils were blown wide from the weed they'd shared. "I've been writing some songs. Helps me clear my head."

Zari considered this. "They're not all depressing, are they?"

*

All of Nate's songs were depressing. Worse than that, he was running out of words to rhyme with Amaya. 

"You miss her papayas?" Zari asked, squinting at the lyric sheet.

"I really do." Nate sighed. "And her--"

"No. Don't spoil it."

"Hey, guys! Am I late for band practice?"

Zari turned around. Ray was standing in the entryway of the Waverider's common area, clutching his laptop. "Ray's in the band?" she asked, glancing over at Nate.

Nate raised his hands above his head with a happy grin. "Ray's in the band! Hey, buddy."

Ray held his computer a little closer to his chest, looking bright-eyed and uncertain. It reminded Zari uncomfortably of Ray's lonely eight-year-old self for a moment. "Yeah. Is that not okay?"

"Of course it's okay," Nate said. "Isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Zari said. "I just didn't know Ray played an instrument."

"Well it's not an instrument so much as a drum tracks program that I wrote. I entered over two thousand samples from real percussion--."

"Is it gonna be loud?" Nate asked, cutting off Ray's explanation.

"Sure?" Ray said.

"Alright!" Nate did a fist pump and a series of claps. "Let's get ready to make some noise!"

*

After band practice, Nate and Zari fabricated a handful of vegan cannabis gummy bears. Ray disappeared with a murmured excuse, shuffling as quickly as he could back towards his room with his computer in his hands. Zari watched him go.

"Do we smell bad?" she asked Nate.

"Nah. There were these ads in the eighties--the nineteen eighties, I mean--about how doing drugs was like cracking your brain like an egg and frying it up in a pan. I think Ray took them pretty seriously."

"This is your brain on drugs!" Ray called before he turned the corner.

Nate shrugged.

*

They met once a week after that, more or less. It was weirdly hard to stick to a schedule when you were tracking mystical creatures through time, Ray noted as he set up an erasable noticeboard in the common area. He wrote: _band practice, 6pm Wednesdays_ in neat, square handwriting, then signed it with his name and a smiley face.

It didn't stop other team members from interrupting. After state hospitals and the small, lonely boltholes she'd lived in while on the run from ARGUS, sometimes the chaos was a refreshing change of pace. 

Sometimes.

"Can you keep it down?" Mick growled at them. Meecifully, he had thrown on a pair of boxers before stomping out of his room to make his complaint. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

"It's not even nighttime," Nate said, freezing in place with his guitar in his hands. He furrowed his brows. "Unless I lost track of time again."

Zari shook her head. She narrowed her eyes in Mick's direction. "No, it's not you. Mick's being weird. As usual."

"Don't give me attitude, New Girl. I was up half the night taking care of--" Mick stopped himself midsentence, and glowered at everyone in the room. 

"Taking care of what?" Ray asked. He sounded genuinely interested in the answer.

"My boner. Obviously. I was jerking off. All night." Mick made an illustrative gesture with one hand, then banged his massive fist against the Waverider's bulkhead. "And now I need to get some rest, so keep it quiet." He scowled, and turned his back, clomping away in his bare feet. 

"Did that sound like a lie to anyone else?" Zari asked after he left.

Ray nodded silently.

"Yeah?" Nate said. "Why wouldn't he just jerk off in the shower like normal people?"

Zari couldn't help scrunching up her mouth like she'd tasted something sour. "Too much information, Heywood. Do you think he's up to something?"

"Oh, he's definitely up to something. Wanna find out what?" Nate asked.

Ray's mouth turned down unhappily. "Guys. We're supposed to be practising. Being on a team is about trust, and--"

"Getting all up in each other's business," Zari suggested. "It's a small ship."

"Yeah!" Nate grinned. "Let's go."

"Call it a team-building exercise," Zari suggested.

Ray brightened. 

*

It was a few hours before they could implement the plan. When Mick finally reemerged from his room, they put Ray on Mick-distraction duty.

"Leave me alone, Haircut." Even from down the hall, Mick's gravelly voice was unmistakable.

"Ha, of course I'm not up to anything, Mick. I was just going to make a sandwich. Would you like one?"

"This is a lot like the last time you and I spied on Mick," Zari told Nate, as they tiptoed away from the bickering voices and around the Waverider's corridors into Mick's room.

"Oh yeah. I wish I could have been there." Nate's voice trailed off in volume, sounding wistful. "Like, actually there, not just a computer program. Did I do anything cool?"

"You caught your leg in a bear trap." Zari shrugged.

Nate winced. "That sounds so not cool."

"Nope." Zari thought some more. "You taught me how to have fun, I guess. We played beer pong on the bridge. Sara was really mad about it."

"That is awesome." Nate high-fived her, Zari extending her hand to meet his with a fond eyeroll. "Did I win?"

"Nope."

"Are you just saying that because I have no way of checking?"

"You'll never know."

"Well, I demand a rematch," Nate said. "At Central City U, my beer pong skills were legendary."

"Of course they were." Zari stepped towards the centre of the room, tracing a zigzag path across the patches of bare floor, dodging the dirty clothes and empty beer bottles scattered everywhere. At least she could actually see parts of the floor, Zari reasoned. "Gotta say, I actually expected Mick's room to be a way bigger disaster bomb."

"Maybe he's having a mental breakdown." Nate eyed Mick's heat gun, hung high on the wall. 

"Maybe he's got a girlfriend," Zari suggested. "Or a boyfriend?"

"Why would he keep that a secret?" Nate turned in a circle, peering in the corners of the room one by one. "Wait. Do you hear something?"

"I--maybe?" Now that Nate had mentioned it, Zari could hear a scrabbling noise, followed by a quiet, high-pitched whine. "Uh. There's no chance that Mick has a baby in here, right?"

"No?" Nate thought for a moment, before getting down on his hands and knees to check under the bed. "I mean, where would Mick get a baby?"

"Well, something's making that noise. Cover me." Zari stepped towards the room's only cupboard, standing as far back as she could manage when she opened it. There were no exploding dye packs this time, just a small animal with reddish brown fur watching her. Sharp eyes that darted back and forth, tracking every movement she made. It barked twice in warning. Zari decided not to come any closer.

"Am I hallucinating," Zari asked, as Nate side-stepped a small pile of dirty socks, moving to stand next to her, "or does that animal have eight tails?"

"Nine," Nate corrected, slipping into the familiar professorial voice he used for pre-mission history lectures. "It's a huli jing. A fox spirit. They were popularly worshipped during the Tang dynasty."

"Mick's keeping a fox spirit. In his room. Like a pet." 

Nate extended a hand down towards the huli jing, moving tentatively. It sniffed his fingers suspiciously, but didn't bare its teeth. "At least it's not a--"

"Code two-zero-two!" Ray's voice shouted through Gideon's speakers, sounding slightly frantic. "I repeat, code two-zero-two."

Zari looked at Nate with confusion. "Which one is that?"

Nate had jerked up in surprise at the interruption. He thought for a moment, standing up and scratching his arm. "If it's a code two-oh-two, then don't forget to check--"

"Behind you." Zari jumped as Mick stepped into the room. "Haircut makes a terrible lookout, by the way. If this were a heist, you'd all have been snatched up by the pigs." He eyed Zari meaningfully, then Nate. His scrutiny then slid downwards to the jumbled mess of his belongings on the floor. "It's not a heist, is it?"

"We would never steal from you, Mick," Nate said. He held his hands up, palms outward, as if to prove his point.

"Yeah," Zari agreed. "You don't have anything we want."

"Then why are you here?" Mick demanded in a low voice.

The huli jing barked in recognition at the sound of Mick's voice, emerging from the closet to make a beeline for the familiar human. Zari watched the animal circle Mick's heels before leaning two front paws against Mick's ankles, looking up at him. Mick sighed and bent to pick up the animal. Cradled in Mick's arms, the huli jing snuffled happily into the crook of Mick's elbow.

"Code Two! Zero! Two!" Ray shouted, running into the room and pulling up short behind Mick.

"Yeah, Ray," Zari said, as kindly as she could. "We got that."

"Hey, there." Constantine appeared, halting his canter down the hall. He was wet from the shower, wearing only a towel that hung dangerously low on his hipbones. He tapped Ray on the shoulder with a grin, making the other man squeak in surprise. "What's this, team orgy? No one invited me."

The huli jing barked, squeezed out of Mick's arms, and barreled past Constantine into the hallway.

*

"You can't keep a huli jing as a pet, you fucking idiots." Constantine's mouth curled up, his voice vibrating with aggravation. He thrust his hands to his sides, abruptly aborting the habitual movement as his fingers came in contact with the towel he was still wearing instead of the pockets that usually contained his cigarettes and lighter. He drummed irritated fingers against his thighs.

"Why not?" Ray asked. He'd chased the huli jing into the common room, followed by the rest of the group, and had kneeled down to pet it. "It's cute."

"Her name is Kiki," Mick added, giving everyone that had gathered in the common room a glare that forestalled any follow-up questions.

"You can't name her," Constantine groaned in frustration. "They're not dumb animals. They're much smarter than you, mate, and they've got ideas of their own. That makes them dangerous."

Zari glanced over at the huli jing. It was rolling over onto its back on a rug, short legs sticking straight up into the air. Its tails swished against the carpet, making a noise like a brush. "Dangerous, huh?"

Constantine ignored Zari's sarcastic tone. He stared intently at Mick. "Dangerous, and capable of shapeshifting. Has it appeared to you in another form? Has it tried to offer you anything?"

Mick'eyebrows shot up, his eyes suddenly glistening with interest. "What, like money? Jewels? Gold bars?"

"Yes," Constantine said, "exactly."

"Nope." Mick looked disappointed.

"Oh, good, you're all here." Sara strode into the room, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen.

Constantine pointed at her. "Thank god. It's your job to talk some sense into these jackasses." 

Sara halted partway through the doorway, the rest of her greeting dying on her lips. She stared at Constantine, and then looked over at the huli jing. She shrugged. "One problem at a time. Meet me on the bridge, everybody."

"Code three-three-three," Ray said in satisfaction. 

*

The siren had been harassing Britsh imperial ships for weeks just off the coast of Ireland. Two frigates had been sunk before the Legends caught up with them. In retrospect, Zari thought, if anyone was going to get captured and tied to a rock in the middle of the Irish Sea, then Ray was the most likely candidate. The unexpected part was Nora Darhk showing up with stormy, raging eyes, casting bolts of lightning from her fingertips. She used her power to squeeze the siren's throat silent. After that, the fight was over in minutes. "Nora!" Ray swallowed, glancing worriedly over at the rest of the Legends. "You shouldn't be here. You're a fugitive."

Sara had both hands on her weapon. Her eyes didn't stray from Nora, carefully following each step the other woman made. Waves crashed and broke around them, spraying the rocky ground of the island knoll they all stood on. After a few hours spent searching for Ray, the sun was starting to lower in the sky. The tide was rising. "That's a polite way of putting it," Sara said.

Nora's eyes sparkled with a glimmer of a challenge. "Come on, Ms. Lance. Who here hasn't done things they regret?" 

"Do you?" Sara asked, with an icy blade in her voice. "Regret them, I mean."

"What? Of course she does? Thanks," Ray added with a sigh of relief, as Nora released the tight knots of seaweed that bound his wrists with a casual wave of her hand. 

"We had it under control," Mick growled. He glared at Nora, hefting his heat gun in her general direction.

Nora didn't look intimidated. She conjured the ATOM suit into the palm of her hand, and sent it flying in Ray's direction. "Sure. That's how you lost him in the first place, I assume."

"We didn't lose him," Sara snapped, with an emphatic roll of her eyes. "He's our teammate. We would never just lose--"

"Uh, guys?" Zari raised a hand, looking around. "Where did Nate go?"

*

Ray slipped into the ATOM suit immediately. He took to the sky, and did an aerial search that came up empty. Sara touched a hand to her earpiece, asking an inaudible question.

"Gideon says there's a hidden seacave on the scan two miles east," she reported. "Let's hope they haven't gotten any further than that."

When Zari hopped out of the boat at the threshold of the cave a few minutes later the wind was changing direction. Storm clouds raced across the sky. Ray and Nora were already there, Ray setting Nora gently on the rocks before powering down the suit's thrusters. Zari licked her lips and tasted the sharp sting of ocean salt. Just steps away from the mouth of the cave, everything was pitch black. Mick ignited his heat gun, while the rest of the team pulled flashlights from their jacket pockets, sweeping light beams in every direction. Seawater lapped at the walls of the walls of the cave. The soles of Zari's boots made a damp sound on the slick, wet rocks. Nora moved on light feet, as if she was unaffected by the darkness, and Zari watched her uneasily.

"There." Mick pointed a thick finger in the same direction that he was aiming his gun. A slumped figure was just barely visible at the back of the cave. "Think Pretty's unconscious."

"Then you get to carry him out of here. Watch out for our scaly friend," Sara said. "She should still be--"

Sara broke off unexpectedly, something catching her attention. There was a sudden tingling sensation up and down Zari's arms. The air shimmered above and around them, a dome shape that trapped Nora and the Legends within its invisible walls.

Sara spun, raising her weapon in Nora's direction. "What the fuck are you--"

The rushing sound of a swell of water, as high as a house, covered up the rest of Sara's words. The wave crested over their heads, and crashed against Nora Darhk's hastily-made barrier dome. There was a series of hissing sounds growing steadily closer. Zari swung her light in the direction of the noise. Not one but three sirens had appeared, advancing on the team in the wake of the high water, their lashing tails kicking up spray. 

Zari briefly touched her fingers to her amulet, closing her eyes. The water began to spiral into a cyclone. All three sirens were lifted off of the ground. The one closest to the team had green eyes, flashing dark with anger. She hissed, baring angular teeth.

"Drop the barrier!" Sara shouted. She charged forward, staff extended, without waiting to see if Nora would follow the order. The air shifted again, and the tingling underneath Zari's skin stopped. She loosened her hold on her totem, whistling out a breath as she released the power, and the hurricane she'd conjured stopped abruptly. The sirens fell a few feet back onto the ground. Sara slammed the nearest one in the head with her weapon, and followed it up with a sharp elbow. Her mouth pulled back into a satisfied expression.

"Nate?" Zari ran towards the back of the cave, kicking up a series of splashes in pools of water. She put her hand next to his throat, and found a thready pulse. Nate was breathing shallowly. "Nate?"

Nate opened his eyes barely halfway, pupils struggling to focus. He took a surprised breath, speaking slowly, words slurred. "Whoa. Oh, hey, Zari. Did we find Ray?"

Relieved, Zari groped around the rocks behind Nate to find the ends to the bonds that held him down. "Yeah we did, and nap time's over. Come on. You think you can walk?"

Nate got to his feet, and immediately tilted alarmingly to one side. Zari grabbed his arm to stop him from falling. Nate sighed woozily, leaning most of his weight on her with each step. They moved gingerly together towards the centre of the cave, where the fight was over. Mick had begun to restrain the sirens with a handful of plastic zip-ties.

Nora Darhk stood a little apart from the team, shaking water out of her hair.

"If you ever use magic on me again, I will kill you." Sara's flat, even words were deadly serious, and everyone in the cave held in a collective breath until she jerked her staff towards Ray. "Palmer. Get her out of here."

"Aye, Captain." Ray lowered his visor. "Nora. Let's go."

Nora followed him to the mouth of the cave, tucking her hands pliantly around the waist of the ATOM suit before Ray launched into the sky. Zari stared after them. "Is that a thing?" Zari asked nobody in particular. "Did we know that was a thing?"

Mick shrugged, looking uninterested.

Nate wobbled, groaning slightly and drawing back Zari's attention.

"Okay, siren bait." Zari patted him on the shoulder. "Let's go home."

*

"If I didn't know better, I would interpret these scans to mean that Mister Heywood is inebriated."

"Drunk?" Sara scowled, crossing her arms under the bright white lights of the medbay. Nate sat on one of the chairs, kicking his feet against the base like a toddler. "Off of siren song?"

"It appears so, Captain."

"He did get triple the dose that Ray did," Zari pointed out.

"Triple," Nate sing-songed. He pointed fingerguns at them both, then began to squint in confusion at his moving fingers. He reached out and grabbed Zari's hand with a loopy grin, squeezing tight.

"Can you fix it?" Gently, Zari pulled her hand away.

"If he was indeed drugged, I would be able to flush it out of his system," Gideon responded. "But since he isn't, I'm guessing it will wear off soon."

Sara did a surprised double-take, eyeing Gideon's medical display screens. "You're guessing?" she repeated.

"There are very few instances of siren intoxication recorded in my historical archives from which to draw conclusions, Captain." 

"I'm sure you're doing your best, Gideon," Zari said.

"Thank you, Ms. Tomaz." The AI sounded only slightly mollified.

"Suck-up," Sara said, grinning. "Alright, Nate gets to sleep it off and I get to go tell my girlfriend that I'm very sorry I missed our date but the British Empire is safe and--Nate?"

Zari and Sara watched as Nate leaned forward, teetering on the edge of the Waverider's infirmary chair. When he finally swung his feet down to the floor, he headed towards the door. He moved in a crooked path, stopping every few steps to readjust his balance, arms flung uncertainly out to the sides. He didn't say anything as he left the room.

Sara sighed, and glanced over at Zari. Zari sighed. "Yeah. On it."

*

She caught up with Nate in the study. He was bent over the desk, rifling through its drawers.

"Nate?" she asked. "Everything okay? Gideon thinks you'll feel better in a couple of hours."

"I need a pen," Nate muttered without looking up.

Zari glanced down at the desk, where a cheap plastic ballpoint was resting on top of one of Nate's research books. She picked it up. "Like this one?"

"Oh, yeah." Nate grabbed it eagerly. He pulled a yellow notepad out from under a pile of books, and began to scribble. "That siren song, it was just so…"

"Creepy?" Zari suggested.

"Inspiring!" Nate waved a hand in the air, talking almost too fast for Zari to follow. "I just want to write it all down before I forget. It was like, both the best and worst trip I've ever been on. Amaya was there, and you were. And the rest of the team, and my grandfather."

"Your grandfather?" Zari asked. It sounded something like her experience in Gideon's artificial reality a few months ago, but Gideon hadn't shown her the impossible. "That sounds pretty heavy."

"Yeah." Nate sighed, blinking, his eyes turning sad and damp.

Zari eyed him warily. "Uh. Do you need a hug?"

"Yes?" Nate looked hopeful.

Zari moved around the desk, and let Nate drag her into an enthusiastic embrace. She patted his back in return. Nate's enveloping grip was tight and gentle, his chest and arms warm. "Thanks, buddy," he muttered into her hair.

"You smell like seaweed," Zari complained as he released her.

*

Four hours later, Zari's eyelids were getting heavy. She yawned, too sleepy to bother covering her mouth. Nate had moved on to his eighth page of notes, sitting cross-legged on the study desk.

Zari sat up in her chair, blinking tiredly. She powered down the Gameboy in her hands, stashing it back underneath the cushion where she'd found it. "Okay, dude. I'm going to bed. You should think about doing the same. You were unconscious just a few hours ago."

Nate made a dismissive noise, exhaling air through his lips. "I'm fine."

"No need to worry, Ms. Tomaz," Gideon broke in unexpectedly. "I'll keep an eye on him."

"Thanks, Gideon." Zari raised an eyebrow at Nate. "You're kind of Gideon's favourite, huh?"

Nate glanced over at Gideon's display panels, his eyes creasing at the corners with a surprised smile. "I guess so? We do a lot of research together."

Zari waved a hand, then shuffled out of the room. Nate had turned back to his scribbles, barely noticing when she left. 

*

It was kind of like having another brother, Zari guessed, when she woke in the morning to find Nate fast asleep on the floor in a corner of the library. She went back into her room for one of the Waverider's standard rough wool blankets, and returned to drape it over him. Nate didn't wake up.

She still thought about her own brother a lot. It was hard not to, living on a timeship where everything had already happened and might never happen all at once.

*

"Okay. Time for that team meeting." Sara walked into the galley in the middle of the morning, paused audibly before the words team and meeting, putting a cynical stress into the word as she looked around the room.

Zari glanced up from her breakfast, a slice of seven-layer chocolate cake. Mick was sitting at the table with her, scowling over a full mug of coffee. Zari could smell the sharp, unmistakable scent of whiskey coming off it. "I didn't do it,' she said quickly, and Mick grunted agreement.

Sara raised her hands in a "hang on" gesture. "No one's in trouble. We're just going to decide what to do about Mick's pet."

Ray slurped his fresh fruit smoothie through a straw, taking a noisy gulp before he spoke. "Oh, the cute little fox-thing." 

"Huli jing," Nate corrected.

"It's not cute," Constantine reminded them. He'd walked into the room after Sara, cloaked in a musky haze of cigarette smoke.

Mick spoke up. "No point in having a meeting. She's gone."

Silence fell over the entire room. Ray spoke up first. "Kiki's dead? Gosh, Mick, I'm really sorry."

"She's not dead, you morons." Mick tilted his chair backwards to an improbable angle, dragging the tread of his boots along the floor. "She just left. Looked. Can't find her anywhere."

"You lost the huli jing," Sara said. Now she sounded more tired than annoyed. She glanced into Zari's mug, finding it full of hot coffee, and grabbed it to take a deep sip.

"Didn't lose her. What was that Constantine said? She's smarter than me? She does what she wants. Guess she got bored." Mick shrugged. 

"Great." Sara clapped her hands together. "Team meeting over. If that thing comes back, definitely don't tell me about it."

*

"The Temples of Doom?"

Zari groaned, spreading her arms wide across the back of the couch as she watched Nate tune his guitar. "No Indiana Jones references."

"What about--"

"We are not naming the band after any Spielberg movies," Zari cut him off firmly. Her violin lay on the seat beside her. "At all."

Nate made a face. "You know, for someone who grew up in a dystopia with state-controlled media, you are surprisingly picky about your entertainment."

"I'm not picky. All your twentieth century stuff is just boring."

"Like I said. Picky." Nate idly plucked a series of notes that sounded suspiciously like the theme to Jaws.

Zari thought about it. "I liked that one about the bus." 

"You just liked 1994 Keanu Reeves," Nate said. "Which is totally understandable. By the way."

"Hey guys. Sorry I'm late." Ray entered the common room, nearly dropping his laptop as he placed it on the table.

Nate and Zari watched Ray silently fumble with his computer for a moment, and then looked at each other. "Don't worry about it, buddy," Nate said finally. "Everything okay?"

Ray's answering smile was all white teeth and nervous energy. "Sure?"

Nate and Zari glanced at each other again.

"Ray?" Zari said. "Don't make us go breaking into your quarters to find out your secrets."

An embarassed blush suffused Ray's face. He lowered his gaze to the floor. "Okay, I was distracted. I had a video call. It went a little longer than I expected."

"With Nora Darhk?" Zari asked.

Nate sighed. "Ray, we talked about this. The crazy-hot ones are never worth it. No matter how great the sex is."

Ray's red flush deepened.

Further teasing was cut off by Gary stumbling through the door, uncharacteristically out of his Time Bureau suit in black jeans and sweater. He waved as he arrived, his face breaking into a grin. "Hey guys, sorry I'm late."

The group looked at him in confusion. Zari turned to Nate and Ray. "Did someone invite the time dweeb?"

"Don't think so?" Nate said. 

Gary's smile only dimmed a fraction. "This is when you guys have band practice, right?"

"Yes," Zari said , "but--"

"Oh, are you a musician?" Ray asked him.

"I got bass lessons for my bar mitzvah. And I was in the high school jazz band? We won competitions." Gary raised his instrument, holding the electric bass by the neck and gesturing towards it with his free hand. It was painted a shiny grass green. He glanced nervously around the room, waiting for a response. "I have an audition song prepared." 

"Is it going to be loud?" Zari asked him.

Gary hesitated. "Uh, sure?"

"You're in," Nate said.

*

"Whoa." When Zari walked into her room, weighed down by skirts and struggling to untangle the laces on the stays she'd worn into the Legends' most recent mission, there was a strange woman on her bed. She was strikingly beautiful, wearing nothing except an oversized sweatshirt. Long, glossy black hair spilled halfway down her back. "Who are you, and does the captain know that you're aboard?"

The stranger didn't respond. Zari narrowed her eyes, feeling a growing uneasiness churning. She looked more closely at the dark-haired stranger, her attention drawn suddenly to the burn marks around the cuffs of the sleeves. "Wait, is that Mick's hoodie?"

"Mick Rory is not my master," the woman said sharply, speaking for the first time.

"Didn't say he was? No need to be defensive. But if you're looking for Mick this is definitely not his room, so--" Zari gestured towards the door.

"Mick Rory," the woman continued over Zari's words as if she wasn't listening, "is of no use to me. I have chosen you, instead. I would like to offer you something."

Zari raised her eyebrows. "I'm flattered. Really."

"I can give you your family back."

" _Ya elahi_." A cold shiver went down Zari's spine as the pieces finally clicked into place. She stared, the woman's dark eyes bordered by long eyelashes staring impassively back at her. "Kiki?"

The woman inclined her head in a regal half-nod. She stretched her legs, arching her toes. "That is what Mick Rory calls me, yes. I never graced him with the gift of seeing my human form."

"But you're showing it to me. Why?"

"I have told you." Kiki's eyes blinked closed for a moment, her mouth tightening. She was growing impatient. "I would like to make a trade."

"For my family." Zari thought of her brother, of her mother and father, of the burned and empty _jannah_. "In exchange for what, exactly?"

"I will take my payment at a future date. It will be nothing you will miss."

Zari bristled. "Oh, I get it. You picked me me because you thought I was the easy mark. What is it with you supervillains and my personal trauma? Jeez."

Kiki's nostrils flared. Zari's hand went instinctively to the totem at her throat. She didn't need it to connect to her power, but wearing the necklace was a solid, tangible reminder of her brother. The metal was cool against her fingers. Zari could feel another unknown power building, like a pressure weighing the room down. She took a small step backwards. 

"Your desire called out to me," Kiki said, each of her words a cracking whip. "I offer you a generous gift."

"You offer me the chance to be your patsy. Answer's no." Zari kept her fingers wrapped around the totem, feeling the faint quake of the leashed energy of air thrumming through her bones.

Kiki snarled, a distinctly nonhuman sound. The movement of her open mouth revealed a flash of sharp canine teeth. "You will regret this."

"Don't think so." Zari unleashed a flurry of air, the wind whistling in her small quarters. Kiki leapt into the air, her body turning into that of a fox mid-flight. Mick's hoodie fell to the ground. Just a moment later, four padded paws hit the floor. Kiki snarled, showing sharp canine teeth, and then she ran out of the door and disappeared.

*

Nate showed up one minute later. He was in steel form, wearing the breeches of a French soldier, red overcoat discarded. "Gideon said you might need a hand. Am I too late?"

"Nah." Zari patted him on a solid steel shoulder. Nate tilted his head towards her, his body returning to warm, natural skin and flesh. "You're right on time."

*

Constantine drew a series of runes on the walls of the Waverider the next morning, muttering in Latin as he went. "The smell will fade eventually," he said, smearing more unidentifiable gunk into the symbols. Sara scowled unhappily at him.

"I did warn you," he added.

Sara shook her head. "You really think that thing escaped the ship and somehow survived jumping into the timestream?"

Constantine shrugged, a bored movement that barely lifted his shoulders. "That's not the question, is it, love? The question is, where in time did she end up? What havoc is it going to cause? She could change the tide of any war. She could offer victory to any disgraced ruler. In exchange for immortality."

"She didn't say anything about immortality," Zari said, and immediately regretted it. All eyes turned towards her.

"Uh," Ray began. His voice was obnoxiously, stickily kind. Zari kind of wanted to kick him in the shins. "What did she offer you, Zari?"

"Nothing," Zari insisted, but it was clear that her lie wasn't convincing anyone in the room. She tried again. "She just said some stuff about my brother. I turned her down." A defensive note crept into her voice as Zari crossed her arms.

"Of course you did," Nate said. "Everyone here trusts you. Right, team?"

Gradually, there was a mumbled chorus of agreement. A flash of sadness passed over Sara's face, and Zari knew the captain was thinking of her own lost family. 

"I'll have Gideon keep an eye on the time line." Sara said. "She'll let us know if Kiki changes anything."

*

"You okay?" Nate stood next to her after the rest of the team had dispersed.

"I'm fine," Zari answered, sharply biting out each word. 

Nate cocked an eyebrow at her tone, but he didn't move from her side. "Yeah, okay. You're Zari Adrianna Tomaz and you don't need anyone. I forgot."

Zari grimaced, feeling a twinge of guilt. She glanced away from Nate's concerned face, her eyes lingering on the rune that Constantine had left on the wall. She took. a deep breath. "What I'm saying is, I'll be okay. I'm not going to let some ridiculously hot woman-slash-fox get all in my head about my family."

"She was ridiculously hot?" Nate asked.

"Nate."

"Right. Not important."

"It's not!" Zari gave him a playful tap on the arm. Nate pretend-winced dramatically, making her roll her eyes. "If she shows up again, I'll deal with it."

"You mean we'll deal with it," Nate corrected her. 

"Yeah." Zari looked at him. Nate's expression was bright and earnest, eyes filled with soft concern. "That's what I mean."

*

By the next band practice there'd still been no sign on the huli jing, neither on the ship or in the timeline. Zari decided to take it as a win. Maybe even mischevious spirits knew when to quit.

"I have an idea," Ray began. He was sitting with his computer on his lap, his face relaxed and cheerful. Even by Ray standards. Maybe this Nora Darhk thing wasn't actually doomed to end in tears and punching, Zari reflected.

"We're not doing any numbers from Sound of Music." Zari said immediately.

"Or West Side Story," Nate added.

Gary looked up from his bass, mouth splitting into a grin. "I love West Side Story!" 

"But," Nate continued over him, "I've been thinking, and I also have an idea." 

"Wait," Gary asked, is this a brainstorming session? Because I've been thinking about possible band t-shirts, and--"

"Shut up, Gary," Nate said, but his tone was amiable. He was looking at Zari. I think we should have a party. All of us. Aboard the Waverider."

"Isn't every day on the Waverider a party?" Zari asked him acerbically.

"It really is," Gary said.

Nate slid closer to her across the couch and elbowed her lightly in the side. "No, an actual party. An anniversary party. You've been a member of the team for one year."

"Gideon?" Zari asked after a pause.

"You originally worked with the Legends three hundred and sixty-one days ago. Mister Heywood's math is correct."

"Thank you, Gideon," Nate said.

"For once," Gideon added.

"Wow." Zari looked around the room. Ray was nodding at her. "And hanging out with you guys hasn't killed me yet."

"See?" Nate grinned at her. "That's worth celebrating."

*

Maybe it was worth celebrating, Zari decided later. She wasn't dead. Or rotting in an ARGUS detention centre. Either of which had seemed the only likely fates for her back in 2042.

"Hey, Nate!" she called, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of a roaring minotaur. The beast's bellow repeated, echoing over the beat of stampeding hooves. "I changed my mind. A party probably isn't the worst idea you ever had." 

Nate gave her two thumbs up, and then ducked down low, barely missing the oncoming crackling stream of Mick's heat gun. Zari closed her hands into fists, calling on the power of the wind.

*

Two days later, Nate fabricated an extensive assortment of junkfood and liquor. He coaxed Gideon into playing Zari's favourite metal bands through her speakers, and printed up a collage of photos of Zari on edible sugar, a standing monument that he used to decorate the cake.

"I have some gummy bears," he added, holding up a small plastic bag. He winked in her direction. "For later."

Ava and Gary were there, and so was Constantine. Mick carried in a case of beer, sitting beside it and cracking open the first bottle. Jax arrived soon after, along with Wally West and Lily Stein. Zari couldn't remember ever having had a party thrown for her before. It wasn't a bad turnout.

She wasn't expecting Helen of Troy, who appeared in the doorway smiling happily next to a beaming Ray. She wasn't expecting Jonah Hex.

Zari closed her eyes for a moment, fighting the urge to cover her face. "Who invited Jonah?" she hissed at Sara.

Sara shrugged with feigned casualness, utterly failing to look innocent. Ava was standing beside her, their fingers twined together. "Dunno. Maybe you should ask him."

"You're all dead," Zari muttered through her teeth, and then Jonah was behind her, calling her name and tipping what appeared to be a brand new hat in her direction. 

"Miss Zari. Howdy."

*

"Guess what," Ray said a half-hour later. "I've planned out some party games for us."

The entire room groaned loudly.

"No, it'll be fun," Ray insisted. He began to hand out pencils, frowning as Mick took one and immediately began breaking it into pieces. "The first one is called 'How Well Do You Know Zari', and you're going to write down your answers. The first question is what Zari's star sign?"

Nate won the quiz with a score of nine out of ten. "Your greatest fear is small spaces?" he asked. "Really? We live on a pretty small ship."

Zari shrugged. Nate kept talking. "I think snakes are much scarier. Or scorpions."

"Clowns," Mick suggested, yanking the cap off another beer.

"Lung disease," Ray added. 

"The cold void of the space between life and death," Sara said.

"Y'all sure do know how to throw a shindig," Jonah Hex murmured next to her.

*fin.

**Author's Note:**

> The band is probably terrible but they're having fun and that's what counts. Beta'd by my girls skripka and llaras.


End file.
